This third injection will concern, from this autumn, those over 50, vulnerable people and health personnel.
The British authorities have chosen to favor the Pfizer vaccine rather than that developed by AstraZeneca, because it is considered less effective against contamination.
The United Kingdom is preparing to offer an additional booster to anti-Covid vaccines. This third dose will be injected to those most at risk from this fall. But this time, the British-Swedish vaccine AstraZeneca, which has been at the heart of various controversies concerning its effectiveness since the launch of vaccine campaigns in Europe, will not be privileged.
The United Kingdom defended the AstraZeneca vaccine to the end, but for the additional booster in the fall, Pfizer will be the preferred option.
From September, people over 50, vulnerable Britons and healthcare workers will be offered a second booster of the vaccine.
Faced with the Delta variant, the United Kingdom has recognized the limits of the vaccine from the Oxford laboratories, and Pfizer will be preferred even for people who have already received two doses of AstraZeneca.
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"Astrazeneca is less effective at stopping an infection"
"AstraZeneca is very good at limiting the risk of severe disease, at the same level of effectiveness as messenger RNA vaccines, but AstraZeneca is less effective at stopping an infection than these other vaccines", explains to Europe 1 Paul Hunter, Epidemiologist at the University of East Anglia.
The United Kingdom ended up recommending an alternative to the AstraZeneca for those under 40, but well behind other European countries.
According to Public Health England, the vaccines would however have prevented nearly 60,000 deaths linked to Covid-19 in England.